The sale doesn’t end at checkout: survey shows the importance of post-purchase interactions

You spend a lot of time, effort and money to get a new customer through the virtual door. Once there, you dazzle them with your unique products or ground-breaking services and they’re hooked. They add the item to the cart, complete the checkout process and you have their money. Yeah!

You’re probably ready to move on to the next customer but not so fast. In new survey by ACCENT Marketing, 86% of consumers said it was important to them that they have a positive experience after making the purchase.

For the average transaction, all a customer wants is follow-up. This could be as simple as an email with a tracking number so they know when their package will arrive. By why stop at simple and average. I was listening to a podcast this week with a magician who said the secret to his success was giving customers helpful information over and above what they paid for.

When a customer calls him for a party quote, he sends out timely emails with party tips, checklists, etc. He shows the customer that he’s interested in helping create an overall memorable experience. It’s not just a paid gig. It’s his mission.

Accent says that almost half of all consumers interact with a brand after purchase. I’m going to assume they mean “initiate after purchase contact.” As you can imagine, a large number of post-purchase interactions happen because there’s a problem with the sale. But “93% of consumers claim that a positive response or special offer can help restore the company’s reputation after a bad experience.”

What’s important is that customers think about a company after purchase for several good reasons, too. Note that 62% think about a company when they’re about to make a new purchase. The question is, are they going to think, ‘I totally want to go back to that place where I shopped before’ or are they going to think ‘oh man, no way am I buying from them again!”

Personalized communication is what stands out in the consumer’s mind. They want to feel like they’re satisfaction is your number one concern even though they know they’re one of 100’s or 1,000’s.

One last thing. Here’s a graph that shows the difference between how customers want to communicate with you and how they want you to respond to them.

Note that 34% prefer to call a company but only 21% want to be called back. On both sides of the street, email rules.

Homework for next week: come up with a helpful follow-up email that you could send to your customers post sale. A pleasant surprise will go a long way toward building a long-term relationship.

http://brentjonesonline.com/ Brent Jones

That is so interesting that only 1% of customers adopt text messaging as a preferred means of contact. I would have thought text would have been marginally higher than that.